Fall storm toy

Supposedly, it's still summer, but windsurfing today sure felt like fall, with temperatures in the 60s, rain - and Nor'easter winds in the low 30s, gusting up to 40. Great day to try out the new toy I bought yesterday for fall storms: a Mistral Edge slalom board, ca. 1997, 92 l and 53.5 cm "wide".

For buying this board, I'll have to put the blame on Cesar, who has convinced almost everyone who surfs in Fogland that they should own a speed board, or better a whole bunch of speed boards. Ok, I love going fast, and my old Bic Nova 120 really does not want to go faster than 50 kmh. I'd love to get an iSonic, Tabou Manta, or Fanatic Falcon, but I'm about $2K short. So when Nina saw the Mistral Edge for $125 on Craigslist, I checked the top speed it has logged on gps-speedsurfing.com: 65 kmh, fast enough for the next step up. Picked it up yesterday, and surfed it today. We picked Duxbury, since E-NE winds tend to be stronger and more consistent there than at most other places, and since the bay has a few protected spots for speed runs.

The board is almost ancient and pretty heavy (the in-flight adjustable mast track alone can probably hold 2 pounds of water). But for really windy days, heavy is not necessary bad. We left when the wind averages were about 26 mph; but when we arrived, the wind had dropped to 22, so I started out with my 7.0 Matrix. Sure enough, the wind picked up again, and the 7.0 was definitely too big. I switched down to a 5.5 Matrix, which had me fully powered; later, when the wind picked up even more, I was overpowered on it.

Sailing the Edge was surprisingly easy. It feels quite different than newer boards, but required little adjustments. My biggest problem was the super-smooth surface, which made me slip a few times, until I discovered that only 2 front foot positions were safe: against the mast base, and in the straps. That cramped my style when getting going a bit, but fortunately, Duxbury makes it easy to do mile-long runs before turning around. When I did turn around, the board amazed me again by being easy to turn, and keeping a lot of speed. I'll need a few more days before my jibes on it are pretty, but at least I got a few dry ones in.

Here are the GPS tracks from today:

The picture shows the setup for speed runs quite nicely. Since I was not 100% comfortable, I did not get as close to shore as possible. This limited my speed a bit, and it also limited how deep downwind I went. Nevertheless, I set new personal bests for 1, 2, and 10 seconds, average speed, and 100, 250, 500, and 1852 m runs. The improvements were just 2-3 kmh, but still - rather nice for the first day on a new (albeit rather old) board. I should have gone out for a few runs on Nina's 4.2 sail at the end, though, when the 5.5 was way too big - I missed my average speed ( 5 x 10 sec) goal of 50 kmh by 0.37 kmh! Just one more nice run over 50 kmh would have done the trick... Still, lots of fun - so today's thanks go to Cesar!

15 days in Cabarete

We just came back from 15 days of windsurfing in Cabarete. This was my 9th trip to Cabarete, but the first time I went in August. Overall, this was a very nice trip, even though the wind was not quite as good as expected. Here's a breakdown:

• 3 very nice days (5.7 - 6.1 m sails)
• 8 good days (6.9-7.4 m)
• 3 light wind days
• 1 no-wind, rainy day

Here's a short boom cam video from two of the very nice days:

(You can see the HD version on Facebook, but you need to be logged in).

On previous summer trips, which always were earlier in the summer (June - July), I remember a lot more days on smaller sails and boards - 5.x m sails being common, and 4.x sails for some days. And the difference is indeed the wind, not my weight (which has not changed, while my skills have improved a bit).

We rented our equipment at Vela, as usual. They had a selection of Starboard Futuras and Kodes, as well as the full range of JP Wave boards, from small quads to 112 l FSW. They also had JP Xcite rides and beginner boards, and 3 Tabou boards. The boards were a mix of 2009 and 2010 models, although generally in good shape. Missing in comparison to previous years were slalom-oriented boards like the JP SuperSports or Starboard iSonics. Considering the many days of marginal conditions, that was a bit of a bummer. I ended up using the Tabou Rocket 64 (115 l) a lot, since it was the closest to a fast, early planing board. I tried the JP Futuras a few times, too, but I still don't like them. When the Futuras plane (which they did early enough, thanks to huge fins), they are ok - but they are a pain to schlog, and are missing the intermediate gears that boards like the JP Excite Rides and the Tabou have.

Sails were all Neil Pryde, from 8.2 and 7.7 m Hellcats (one each) to 7.4 and 6.9 m Excess (several each) to Fireflys and other smaller sails. Except for the largest sails on marginal days, getting a sail of the wanted size was usually not a problem. I noticed that the booms on the new sails were all X3 booms, which looked a bit flimsy.

A definitive highlight of the trip where the Vela instructors. Nina's sister, who windsurfed for the first time again after a 10-year break, was in good hands with Alex, and improved a lot. Nina and I took a few lessons with Neil, and were also very happy. I did not manage to complete a carving 360 (the topic of my lesson), largely because the conditions were not quite right. I did get a few tips that I could use right away, though - for example, moving the front foot to the outside of the board when trying to get planing. I have no clue why, but it works rather well, and got me going earlier. Neil has a great way of explaining things, and often pointed out little things that he had observed. Both Nina and I improved our heli tacks based on hints that he gave, and learned the push tack in light winds from one of the lessons.

Overall, we loved the trip, even though the wind could have been better. One thing that's great in Cabarete are the waves. During the summer, they tend to be small, so they are great to get started with playing in waves. While I did not get the opportunity to take a small wave board out, even playing with a 115 l board was fun. Chances of breaking equipment in Cabarete's summer waves are slim - the water over the reef is deep enough (I could barely tough the reef when I got washed), and the waves break gently, making it easy to hold on to the gear. The chop on the inside is there, but it's relatively easy to deal with - definitely not "voodoo chop". Close to shore, the water gets pretty flat, making it easy to work on jibes or new school freestyle. I did not try much, partially because I had only 3 days on small sails, but I played around a bit with chop hops and board pops. Nina caught one pop close to shore where I managed to land nose-first on camera:

On the picture, I'm still a bit too much in chop hop (outside) rather than pop (over the board) position - but at least, I got the nose down, which I have not done to often yet. Well, the windy season here is about to start, and the ABK camp in Cape Cod is coming up, so new stuff should be coming soon.

Speedy fun

We had a great day windsurfing in Fogland on Wednesday, with wind averages in the low twenties and gusts near 30. Here's a short video:

(or watch the HD version on the Fogland Windsurfing page on Facebook).

I sailed my freestyle board for the first 90 minutes, and then got to try something new: a ride on Cesar's speed board, a 100 l Naish. That was my first time ever on a speed board - interesting. Definitively fun and fast. Even though I did just a couple of runs back & forth, I clocked my best speed of the entire day on it (49.8 kmh).

I had sailed my freestyle board with a 24 cm fin, which does not allow much pressure and therefore limits speed. After the run on Cesar's board, I wanted a bit more speed, and switched to my old Bic Nova 120 (our fastest board, the Mistral Screamer, still needs to be fixed). I eventually got close to the speed that I had reached on the Naish, but I think the wind had picked up quite a bit by then. The Nova was maxed out for the conditions at 48 kmh, but I bet the Naish would have been at least 5-10 miles faster.

Oh devious Cesar! He is getting everyone at Fogland into speed surfing. You see more and more surfers going for deep-downwind speed runs close to shore, and talking about getting dedicated speed boards. Even Nina finally borrowed my GPS, and reached more than 40 kmh on her 100 l Skate with a 22 cm fin.

Talking about Nina - look again at the video above. This is the same girl that learned to use both footstraps last September, and learned to jibe while planing this March. Her posture on the board is probably the best of all the surfers on this video. She carries a lot of speed through her jibes, until it's time to flip the sail. Once she gets a bit more practice in the sail flip, and sheets in more in the jibe entry, she'll be planing out of the jibes as if it was nothing. So ok, I'm biased - but she gets positive comments on her style and rapid progress almost everytime we are sailing. On Wednesday, someone commented that she makes the jibe look easy.

I have been sailing with Nina for about 5 years now, and I know that her rapid progress is largely due to the three ABK camps she has taken. If you have any interest in improving your windsurfing and you live in or near New England, don't miss the ABK camp in Hyannis from September 10-12!

I may not look as great on a windsurf board as Nina does, but I sure had plenty of fun last Wednesday. I did not try much - a duck jibe that was fine, a little bit of popping, and one loop exercise. I think I picked a bad moment for the loop exercise, though, just as a gust hit. I was not deep enough in the straps, either, and got pulled out, which converted the exercise into a catapult. Must have been a good one - even though I let go of the mast, and despite the dual-density foam nose protector, the mast still dinged the nose of board a bit. I think I put the nose protector a bit too far to the inside. Still, I was glad I had it on - without the protector, the damage would certainly have been bigger. I kept sailing the Skate for a while longer afterwards, but this kept me from trying more loop exercises and other crazy stuff. Next time will be in some chop or waves, when the board is most of the way in the air, and my feet glued to the straps!

On thing I did was on the entire time was jibes. Same old, same old - but always room left for improvement. I played around a bit with Power jibes (opening the sail when going downwind) vs. oversheeted jibes (keeping the sail closed), and with late sail flips, trying to plane out clew first. Another thing I worked on a bit was trying to get speed first, before getting back into the harness lines (which is typically the first thing I do). Here, I got penalized for being too lazy to put my single-point lines on the boom: it got so windy that the wind blew the lines away from me, and it sometimes took a while to get in. I actually had to stop surfing after 3 1/2 hours because my arms started cramping up. Before that, though, I got about 10 jibes in where the minimum speed was close to or above 10 knots - including my fastest min speed ever, at 12.7 knots. Those jibes felt great!

When I looked at the jibes on the boom cam video after coming back home, I noticed a big difference between the jibes on the 110 l Skate and the 120 l Bic Nova. On the Skate, I was much more active, going low both during the jibe entry and again to get speed again at the exit. On the Nova, I was lazier, not going down as much. On the other hand, my front arm was often much better extended on the Nova, and bent too much on the Skate. Plenty of possible reasons for this - the Nova keeps plowing once it's going, I sailed it much more often than the Skate, I was fresher while on the Skate, ...

There are many things that are great about windsurfing. Two of these are:

1. There are some things that you can keep working on for many years, and still improve and learn new variations, even when you think you're good at it already.
2. There are so many different ways to have fun - flatwater speed blasting, freeriding, freestyle, bump & jump, waves - it just does not get boring.

The important thing is to try different things, and to appreciate the different ways of having fun. Of course, if you try something new, you'll probably not be good at it, and may have even have to really fight. But the rewards will come - maybe after a week, maybe after a few months, just keep going at it and have fun!

Sometimes, there are silly discussions on iWindsurf, for example whether a longboard or a formula board is "the better choice". My answer: make sure to try both, and try it long enough so you know how to do it. Formula gear (or, more generally, wide boards with big fins & sails) can get you planing early, and go faster than the wind. Long boards may plane a bit slower, but are actually lots of fun in non-planing conditions and (so I have heard) to play in waves. Learn a few low-wind tricks, and instead of being frustrated next time when the forecast is wrong, go and play!

Playing around with different windsurfing "styles" will definitely help you in your "favorite style". Take speed sailing, for example. To go really fast, you need to learn how to sail overpowered, and to go deep downwind. I've done enough of this on my freeride board to be comfortable on deep downwind angles. So when I ended up windsurfing at Maryhill on the Gorge, where the current was so strong that you had to constantly sail deep downwind, I was reasonably comfortable. At the same time, Nina, who had almost never gone deep downwind while planing, hated it!

I also think that the two weeks of chop sailing in Maui and the Gorge have helped me on my favorite venue, flat water. Being forced to sailed the small boards and sails improved by feeling even on big boards, and I can plane earlier now, and stay on the plane better. Sometimes when I get home and look at the wind readings for the day, I'm surprised that I was planing on the gear I had picked - a year earlier, I would have been schlogging most of the time in the same conditions. But there's still plenty of room for improvement left here - the really good windsurfers can usually plane with 1 or 2 meters less sail, compared to reasonably good windsurfers of the same weight on similar boards. And improving skills to plane with smaller equipment seems a lot easier than loosing a lot of weight :)

Following this logic, it is clear that Cesar has done a great job in getting others interested in speedsurfing. Now we'll just have to get him into ABK camps, so he can use freestyle to improve his stance and jibes, for even more speed and fun!

Summer winds

In the last 10 days, we have had three days were we went windsurfing and had enough wind to plane - two days with averages around 18 mph, and one day with a bit more for a couple of hours. I tried to sail my Fanatic Skate on each day, but often, I'd end up with that sinking feeling:

So I used my bigger boards most of the time - the Bic Nova 120 or even the Bic Techno 293. While the Nova does not plane up any faster than the Skate, it handles a large fin and 8.5 m cambered sail much better, and the 10 extra liters make schlogging a lot easier. And if the wind is so low that I schlog most of the time on the Nova, the 80 cm width and 205 l of the Techno usually get me planing.

The last day we went, the wind came from an unusual direction: WNW, instead of the usual S to SW. This meant more variability, and more chop, since the waves have a few miles to build, instead of just a few hundred feet. At first, when wind averages where closer to 15, the swell was small, and the Techno was handling it nicely, staying on a plane even in lulls. When the wind picked up later and the swell got bigger, surfing the Techno was hitting the chop hard and slowing down a lot, and it was time to switch to a smaller board. I tried the Skate with a 7.0 sail first, but of course that was timed perfectly with a lull, where the averages where below 15 mph. As soon as I switched to the Nova and the 8.5 sail, the wind picked up again. Getting superstitious, I stayed on the Nova, although I switched back to the 7.0 sail after a while.

The swell inside the little bay was higher than during the usual southerly winds, but it was still rather tame. Gusts in the afternoon went up to 28 mph, so I was rather nicely powered for a few downwind speed runs. But while the runs felt fast, I barely exceeded 42 kmh; if the water had been flat as usual, I would have been close to 50 kmh. Quite amazing how much difference even a little chop makes, at least with wider boards.

Since I spend most of the time on big gear, I did not try too many interesting things. The first day, I tried a few body drags with the 8.5 m sail. I made it back up onto the board a few times, but the drag time was minimal to non-existent. The times were I held the sail to upright and got catapulted after going of the board were more fun :)

One of the great things in Fogland is that you have to jibe a lot if you stay in the bay, since the runs in the bay are less than 500 m long. This gave me plenty of opportunity to work on keeping my front arm extended in jibes. I have mode some progress:

There is room for further improvement, but this is a lot better than having my front elbow pulled all the way back behind my shoulder, as I often catch myself doing when checking the boom cam videos. I did make a few jibes every day where the min speed was above of near 10 knots, which is not bad.

One thing we tried to do was to simply surf a lot, in preparation for our upcoming trip to Cabarete. We sailed 5-6 hours on day 1 and 3, and definitely felt it the next day. Day 2 was immediately after day 1, and we were so sore that we sailed less, and did not try anything interesting. On day 3, I did a few loop exercises (step 2 in Remko's 4-step approach), and tried couple of duck jibes. I made the first one, although it was not very pretty. On the second one, the mast hit the water and I did a plank walk, which is definitely a great way to cool down. Well, with all the hours surfed recently, and hopefully a few more good days in the next weeks, we should have plenty of energy to try stuff in Cabarete. And shortly thereafter, it's ABK camp time again, and then the fall winds should be back for practicing, and for some Fogland Speedsailing Club sessions.